EMBO|EMBC

➔ 6
preface
Tim Hunt
EMBO Council Chair
Marja Makarow
EMBC President
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
EMBO Secretary General
EMBO & EMBC 2006
EMBO stands for excellence: excellent people,
excellent meetings and excellent journals.
Maintaining these standards down the years
takes time, effort and of course money – and
the core programmes of EMBO are fi nanced
by the 25 member states of the European Molecular
Biology Conference (EMBC). It is perhaps
remarkable, but no accident, that EMBO enjoys
the trust of governments all over Europe, who
continue to provide generous sums to support
its molecular biology fellowships, courses and
workshops without regard to questions of ‘juste
retour’. This is a matter of trust and integrity, a
precious reputation that EMBO has built over its
forty-plus years of existence.
One might wonder if molecular biology still
needs such special support, considering its
overwhelming dominance as a way of looking
at the world. Almost nothing in biology can now
be considered without regard to its constituent
molecules. But the model EMBO provides for European
science is something of which to be extremely
proud – to be cherished and preserved
at all costs. We await with great interest, and
some pride, the development of the European
Research Council (ERC), whose foundation was
strongly supported and actively promoted by
EMBO. The ERC will provide grants to research
groups and labs, not only in the life sciences,
but also in physics, chemistry and the humanities.
Thus, the ERC will complement EMBO and
other organisations such as the ESF and ELSO.
www.embo.org | embo@embo.org
A great strength of EMBO has been its
bottom-up approach to the support of science,
which provided a model for the ERC (fi ve of
whose scientifi c council are EMBO Members and
a sixth an EMBO Young Investigator). We fi rmly
believe that scientists know best how to run
science, whereas administrators know how and
where to fi nd money. Wise governments trust
scientists, and it is apt that each delegation of
EMBC includes one scientifi c member and one
representative from research administration,
thereby combining the necessary specialisms.
The ERC is another example where the knowledge
of researchers has been trusted. EMBO together
with other organisations strongly urged
for the bottom-up approach for the ERC in order
to develop the best concepts and practices.
The EU and its Parliament should be praised for
their conception of the ERC and for allowing it
to adopt the best practices concerning strategy,
governance and evaluation procedures.
Back to practical matters. Despite the existence
of a number of alternative sources of postdoctoral
fellowship schemes, such as the EU’s
Marie Curie Fellowships and the international
Human Frontier Science Program, the demand
for EMBO Fellowships continues to increase.
Recent analysis by the EMBO administration
suggests that twice as many fellowships could
be awarded without compromising standards
– somewhere between three and four hundred
a year. It is thus crucial that EMBO Members